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R.E.M.: Reckoning

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: I.R.S. Records
Released: 1984.04.09
Time:
 38:11
Category: Alternative Rock
Producer(s): Don Dixon & Mitch Easter
Rating:
Media type: CD
Web address: www.remhq.com
Appears with:
Purchase date: 2012
Price in €: 1,00





 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] Harborcoat (B.Berry/P.Buck/M.Mills/M.Stipe) - 3:54
[2] 7 Chinese Bros. (B.Berry/P.Buck/M.Mills/M.Stipe) - 4:18
[3] So. Central Rain [I'm Sorry] (B.Berry/P.Buck/M.Mills/M.Stipe) - 3:15
[4] Pretty Persuasion (B.Berry/P.Buck/M.Mills/M.Stipe) - 3:50
[5] Time After Time [AnnElise] (B.Berry/P.Buck/M.Mills/M.Stipe) - 3:31
[6] Second Guessing (B.Berry/P.Buck/M.Mills/M.Stipe) - 2:51
[7] Letter Never Sent (B.Berry/P.Buck/M.Mills/M.Stipe) - 2:59
[8] Camera (B.Berry/P.Buck/M.Mills/M.Stipe) - 5:52
[9] (Don't Go Back To) Rockville (B.Berry/P.Buck/M.Mills/M.Stipe) - 4:32
[10] Little America (B.Berry/P.Buck/M.Mills/M.Stipe) - 2:58

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


Bill Berry - Drums, Percussion, Backing Vocals
Peter Buck - Guitar
Mike Mills - Bass Guitar, Piano, Backing Vocals
Michael Stipe - Lead Vocals, Harmonica

Don Dixon - Engineer, Producer
Mitch Easter - Engineer, Mixing, Producer
Howard Finster - Art Direction
Mike Cameron - Photography
Ed Colver - Photography

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


Recorded in December 8, 1983 – January 16, 1984, at Reflection Sound in Charlotte, North Carolina.



R.E.M. abandoned the enigmatic post-punk experiments of Murmur for their second album, Reckoning, returning to their garage pop origins instead. Opening with the ringing "Harborcoat," Reckoning runs through a set of ten jangle pop songs that are different not only in sound but in style from the debut. Where Murmur was enigmatic in its sound, Reckoning is clear, which doesn't necessarily mean that the songs themselves are straightforward. Michael Stipe continues to sing powerful melodies without enunciating, but the band has a propulsive kick that makes the music vital and alive. And, if anything, the songwriting is more direct and memorable than before - the interweaving melodies of "Pretty Persuasion" and the country rocker "(Don't Go Back To) Rockville" are as affecting as the melancholic dirges of "Camera" and "Time After Time," while the ringing minor-key arpeggios of "So. Central Rain," the pulsating riffs of "7 Chinese Bros.," and the hard-rocking rhythms of "Little America" make the songs into classics. On the surface, Reckoning may not be as distinctive as Murmur, but the record's influence on underground American rock in the '80s was just as strong.

Stephen Thomas Erlewine - All Music Guide



Given their vast and varied catalog, it's sometimes easier to imagine R.E.M. as a discography than to picture them as a flesh-and-blood band. Ironically, it may be R.E.M.'s insistence upon operating as a fully democratic entity that has allowed them to shapeshift so completely and convincingly. Whether crafting a subdued folk song or an over-the-top glam rock stomper, R.E.M. have always embraced their chosen approach completely, even if it means former drummer Bill Berry laying low for an acoustic number or singer Michael Stipe handing off a lead vocal to bassist Mike Mills. On their sophomore LP, Reckoning, those polymorphous tendencies find root as palpable, electrifying, yet-unexplored potential. And with this aptly named reissue, Reckoning finally gets the "Deluxe" treatment (and much-needed remaster) that it deserves.

This comes as no surprise; the "Deluxe" reissue of the band's debut full-length, Murmur, was revelatory, breathing astonishing new life into a 25-five-year-old album. Greg Calbi's expert remastering job cleaned up the album's notoriously murky sonics and revealed previously unheard detail and force.  This newfound clarity made Murmur seem much more purposeful, lifting the proverbial veil on an album made by record nerds who understood the common ground between the Soft Boys, Gang of Four, and the Velvet Underground. Reckoning couples the energy of Murmur with the experience of a group that has spent a few years touring and recording, documenting that crucial moment when a band's ideas and ambitions are overtaken by the unique chemistry of its players.

Finally, with this remaster, "Harborcoat" makes for a fittingly explosive opener. Many of the best songs on Reckoning follow the formula set forth on this debut track: a methodical verse followed by a sly turnaround into a cathartic chorus. Bill Berry's drum parts are at times virtually indistinguishable from song to song, and Michael Stipe tends to sing verses and choruses in the same respective registers. But Reckoning is far from formulaic - instead, it is host to a kind of determined minimalism, each song building via subtle variations in performance and instrumentation. "Discipline" is not a word that gets thrown around a lot when discussing rock music, but it is key to Reckoning's success.

Case in point: As with countless songs written before and after it, "So. Central Rain" takes up the simple phrase "I'm sorry" as its chorus. But the combination of Stipe's strong-yet-unmistakably-fragile voice, Berry's nervous drumming, and the melodic interplay of Mills' bass and Peter Buck's guitar imbue these well-worn words with remarkable force and meaning. For all the arty, pretentious gestures the band was given to, Reckoning shows that they were not afraid to embrace the universal, to transfigure clichés rather than ham-fistedly avoiding them (see also "Everybody Hurts").

As with its predecessor, Reckoning finds R.E.M. touching upon different styles while working within a fairly consistent aesthetic. The latter half veers a bit towards Americana, without sacrificing any of the momentum built over the album's stunning opening tracks. Slight embellishments go a long way towards highlighting the band's versatility - a propulsive piano line in "(Don't Go Back to) Rockville" elevates the homespun whimsy of Stipe's voice, and hand percussion on "Time After Time (Annelise)" hints at the more understated turn the band would take with Fables of the Reconstruction.

The live disc included in this reissue (a 1984 performance at Chicago's Aragon Ballroom) demonstrates how well these songs work without any such production flourishes. While the raw energy of the live show included in the Murmur reissue is toned down a bit, it is fascinating to hear the band grow more sure-footed in both performance and arrangements. It is also interesting to hear how the band's live approach seems to have been absorbed back into their studio recordings; Stipe's trademark live vocal tics are present throughout Reckoning.

Declaring Reckoning to be R.E.M.'s "best" album sells short just how many different kinds of great albums R.E.M. have released. But, more so than any other R.E.M. record, Reckoning is unified and energized by the very restlessness that has driven the band to explore so many different ideas and identities. It is this paradoxical engine of transparency and mystery that has made the band so unique, regardless of the particular approach they choose to take for a given record. Any way you look at it, this is R.E.M.

Matt LeMay - July 2, 2009
© 2015 Pitchfork Media Inc.



In some musty, R.E.M.-geek clagged corner of the internet, I once came across a particularly moving musing on ‘Harborcoat’, the astonishing piece of music that ushers in the Georgia indie titans’ second album, Reckoning. Well, I say moving: can’t remember a word of what he or she said now, except for one thing – that they didn’t want to write down the words to the chorus, because committing them to the page could never even slightly approximate their impact in song.

The line is: “find my harborcoat, can’t go outside without it.”

That’s it. In isolation it does indeed hover between meaningless and banal. If you were to jot down the preceding verses, then perhaps it takes on some of the subliminal dread hovering vaporously around lines like “they shifted the statues for harbouring ghosts, reddened their necks and collared their clothes”. Michael Stipe has occasionally claimed the song is about Anne Frank or Lillian Hellman, and you’d maybe guess from close study 'Harborcoat' has got something to do with those times, most likely the Russian Revolution or the Great Terror.

But what the band actually do goes so far beyond words: a triplicate cascade of vocal lines, Stipe’s flat and nervous, Bill Berry’s high and ghostly, Mike Mills’ cold combusting with the two as he sings an eerie, completely indecipherable counterpoint. It’s unsettling and gorgeous, and as with all R.E.M.’s finest early moments there’s the feeling that though marked out in crisp Rickenbackers, they’ve tapped into something that predates rock’n’roll, a sailor’s lament hung heavy with European decay.

So that’s a lot of words on ‘Harborcoat’, which is about right, seeing as it’s maybe the hardest song to describe on an album that starts as a continuation of the unfathomable Murmur, and ends up as something way, way, way more familiar.

This not being Mojo, let’s not jump to bombastic conclusions about the ‘importance’ of an album few of us will remember being released. There’s a case to be made for Reckoning as the most influential record of the college rock era, but equally it might just look that way because the band became massive. Whatever the truth, the germs of everything from C86 to The National can easily be spotted in its less oblique moments: the rollicking, semi-jokey barroom crypticisms of ‘Little America’; the hangdog romance and bittersweet smalltown haze of ‘(Don’t Go Back To) Rockville’; and above all the immaculate jangle-pop of ‘Pretty Persuasion’ and ‘Second Guessing’. Harmony-heavy and lethal of chorus, here R.E.M. channelled their Deep South mysticism into a map that could be followed in a way that the inscrutable Murmur simply couldn’t be.

Thus while those songs don’t have the sensation of being ‘other’ in a way much of the band’s work does, they echo and resound in too much of the music of the following 25 years to have dated. Not having Murmur’s sonic murk to cut through, this remaster is more notable for the added 30 second of lo-fi mumblings tacked on after closing track ‘Little America’ than particularly adding anything to Reckoning as was. Guitars and harmonies are harder and clearer, but you’re unlikely to spot anything too new.

It’s also why at points Reckoning sounds more conventional than anything the band put out in the IRS years; scoring systems being the annoying buggers they are, I’d cheerily drop it a mark as it stands on its own, at least in comparison to Murmur or Fables.... The 10/10 is simple enough – the live show on the second CD of this reissue is absolutely amazing, and everyone at Chicago’s Aragon Ballroom on July 7, 1984 should feel very smug about it. The concert is pretty much R.E.M. at their early peak, cheerily defying received wisdom about how to start a gig by sighing on with their delicate cover of the Velvet Underground’s ‘Femme Fatale’ before machine-gunning into much of their first FOUR albums, mossy harmonies and bright chimes of guitar barrelled out with the garage intensity that makes you wonder when exactly indie bands got it into their heads that audiences wanted politeness.

To loop back round, though, there’s still a bunch of songs on Reckoning that really don’t sound like much before or since. They probably don't need introduction, and if they do you’re really better heading to remhq.com and watching Jim Herbert’s exemplary Left Of Reckoning - the songs from the record’s first side set to a surreal, oddly bleak film of the band wandering around a whirligig farm.

But seeing as you’re here: ‘7 Chinese Bros’ is quite, quite mad, a deceptively melodious guitar line subverted by Stipe’s mumbled, half-spoken delivery. His vocal clogs and baffles the music's vibrant ringing, a seemingly nonsensical filter that leaves you weirdly dazed, words suggestive of some peculiar island at the edge of the world. ‘So. Central Rain’ continues the theme of water, an unsettling portrait of the night the band’s friend Carol Levy died, violent floods downing phonelines in Athens as Stipe sat waiting for her call. The chorus’s only words are “I’m sorry” howled over and over, a disturbing moment that becomes more so as they eventually disintegrate into bloodcurdling wordlessness, the singer trying to challenge the storm itself in his helpless grief. Though Stephen Malkmus might have lightheartedly dissed ‘Time After Time (AnnElise)’as his least favourite Reckoning track on Pavement’s ‘The Unseen Power Of The Picket Fence’, it's the perfect curtain to the first side, a weary, tribal-drummed elegy for... something. The lyrics are allegedly to do with a night Mills was arrested for getting drunk in an old water tower; maybe it’s about the passing of youth.

Or whatever. Really, I’m only here to tell you this is another fine reissue of an album you already know is stunning. And you know it’s stunning even if you’ve never heard it: Reckoning is tangled into the alt. rock (and indeed alt. country) firmament more deeply than any other R.E.M. record – you can hear its influence everywhere. Like I said, this isn’t Mojo or Q, let’s not play top trumps over whether Reckoning is more ‘important’ than Zen Arcade or Double Nickels On The Dime or Let It Be. The point is whatever your thoughts on R.E.M. in any form, you really should check Reckoning out – the odds are you owe it one.

Andrzej Lukowski - August 5th, 2009
© 2000-2015 Drowned in Sound



Murky yet emotionally winning, brainy but boyishly enthusiastic, R.E.M.'s debut album, Murmur, burst onto the pop scene last year with minimal fanfare. Though some critics lumped the Athens, Georgia, quartet with the big-guitar bunch (the Alarm, Big Country), R.E.M.'s approach was more delicate and pastoral. Their sound was a curious fusion of vocalist Michael Stipe's bookish, still-wet-behind-the-ears pretension and guitarist Peter Buck's cheerful folky energy. The tunes aside, there was something positively seditious in a song like "Laughing," where an engagingly bright acoustic guitar arpeggio accompanied a lyric like "Laocoon ... martyred, misconstrued." Stipe's words may largely have been indecipherable, but Murmur was consistently intriguing. In short, the best LP of 1983.

On Reckoning, R.E.M. has opted for a more direct approach. The overall sound is crisper, the lyrics far more comprehensible. And while the album may not mark any major strides forward for the band, R.E.M.'s considerable strengths — Buck's ceaselessly inventive strumming, Mike Mills' exceptional bass playing and Stipe's evocatively gloomy baritone — remain unchanged.

If Murmur showed Buck to be a master of wide-eyed reverie, Reckoning finds him exploring a variety of guitar styles and moods, from furious upstrumming to wistful finger-picking. "Letter Never Sent" displays Buck at his sunniest, whirling off twelve-string licks with hoedown fervor, from a lock-step part in the verse that recalls early Talking Heads, to a cascading, Byrds-like riff in the chorus. Buck proves to be an equally infectious keyboard player; his echoey chords slide easily underneath Stipe's cry of "sorry" on the album's single, "So. Central Rain." And on "7 Chinese Brothers," Buck does it all: curt, distorted background chords, icy piano notes, warm chordal plucking and high-string riffs that drone as Stipe sketches, in a mournful hum, the fairy-tale story of a boy who swallowed the ocean. Yet, for all that aural activity, the song flows with elegiac grace.

Stipe, whose voice is usually mixed way back, comes up front for "Camera," an enigmatic account of failed love that's enhanced by an eerie single-string solo from Buck. While less powerful than Murmur's "Perfect Circle," this ballad demonstrates a surprising degree of emotional depth in Stipe's singing. On "(Don't Go Back to) Rockville," a more traditionally structured country rocker, Stipe stretches himself even further, singing in an exaggerated, down-home twang.

There's an off-the-cuff feel to much of Reckoning — even some of the band's jams and coproducer Mitch Easter's exhortations are preserved on side two. Unfortunately, improvisational songwriting has its pitfalls. The group, for example, could benefit from a tougher drum sound. Bill Berry shows a deft touch on the cymbals in the peppy "Harborcoat," but the martial beats of "Time after Time (Annelise)" are about as threatening as the Grenadian army. Stipe's amelodic singing also poses problems at times. While the band tends to use his voice as an instrument, his vocalizing in such songs as "Second Guessing" and "Little America" seems out of place, unsatisfying.

As a lyricist, Stipe has developed considerably over the past year. In "So. Central Rain," he notes, intriguingly, that "rivers of suggestion are driving me away." Yet he still waxes pedestrian on occasion, as in "Pretty Persuasion," which finds him griping, "Goddamn your confusion." His erratic meanderings may give the band some hip cachet, but they are an impediment that will prevent R.E.M. from transcending cult status. With skill and daring like theirs, the tiniest commercial concessions — some accessible lyrics from Stipe and a major-league drum sound — could win this band a massive audience.

Even without those changes, however, R.E.M.'s music is able to involve the listener on both an emotional and intellectual level. Not many records can do that from start to finish. "Jefferson, I think we're lost," cries Stipe at Reckoning's end, but I doubt it. These guys seem to know exactly where they're going, and following them should be fun.

Christopher Connelly - April 9, 1984
RollingStone.com



Reckoning is the second studio album by the American alternative rock band R.E.M., released in 1984 by I.R.S. Records. Produced by Mitch Easter and Don Dixon, the album was recorded at Reflection Sound Studio in Charlotte, North Carolina over 16 days in December 1983 and January 1984. Dixon and Easter intended to capture the sound of R.E.M.'s live performances, and used binaural recording on several tracks. Singer Michael Stipe dealt with darker subject matter in his lyrics, and water imagery is a recurring theme on the record. Released to critical acclaim, Reckoning reached number 27 in the United States—where it was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America in 1991—and peaked at number 91 in the United Kingdom.

Reckoning was released on April 9, 1984 in the United Kingdom, and on April 17 in the United States. The album quickly reached the top of the college radio airplay charts, whose audience had highly anticipated the album. However, the band hadn't received much exposure on commercial radio and MTV by that point. Instead of the music industry standard of waiting for mainstream radio stations to pick up the band's music, I.R.S. hoped to "convince reluctant programmers to add the group by pointing to the press response, word-of-mouth reaction to local live performances and sales figures", according to a July 1984 Los Angeles Times article. The album's first single, "So. Central Rain (I'm Sorry)", was released in May and reached number 85 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles charts. A second single, "(Don't Go Back to) Rockville", came out in August; unlike its predecessor, it did not chart. Within a month of its release, Reckoning peaked at number 27 on the Billboard 200 album chart, and it remained on the chart for nearly a year. While the album's domestic chart placing was unusually high for a college rock band at the time, scant airplay and poor distribution overseas resulted in it charting no higher than number 91 in the United Kingdom. In 1991, the record was certified gold (500,000 copies shipped) by the Recording Industry Association of America.

Rolling Stone gave Reckoning a four out of five star rating. Reviewer Christopher Connelly wrote that in comparison to Murmur the "overall sound is crisper, the lyrics far more comprehensible. And while the album may not mark any major strides forward for the band, R.E.M.'s considerable strengths – Buck's ceaselessly inventive strumming, Mike Mills' exceptional bass playing and Stipe's evocatively gloomy baritone – remain unchanged". However, Connelly felt that Stipe's "erratic meanderings" were an impediment to the band that "will prevent R.E.M. from transcending cult status". Nonetheless, he concluded, "R.E.M.'s music is able to involve the listener on both an emotional and intellectual level." Joe Sasfy of The Washington Post felt that the songs on the album "trump even Murmur's outstanding songwriting" and stated "there isn't an American band worth following more than R.E.M." NME reviewer Mat Snow wrote that Reckoning "confirms R.E.M. as one of the most beautifully exciting groups on the planet" and called the album "another classic". The album placed seventh in that magazine's Best Album of the Year critics' poll, and ranked sixth in the Village Voice Pazz & Jop poll. Slant Magazine listed the album at number 81 on its list of "Best Albums of the 1980s".

The 1992 British Compact Disc reissue of the album included five bonus tracks. A 25th anniversary deluxe edition of the album, which was remastered and packaged with a bonus disc featuring a concert recorded at Chicago's Aragon Ballroom on July 7, 1984, was released in 2009.

Wikipedia.org
 

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